Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How many raspberries for 1 gallon mead? ›

You'll need 3 pounds of honey and roughly 6 ounces of raspberries per gallon.

Fermentation should last between 10 to 20 days. Rack into a conditioning vessel and bulk age for 3 to 6 months. Bottle, then enjoy now and again to see how it's progressing.

How Much Honey Should I Use? In this recipe, you can choose exactly how sweet you'd like your wine to be. We'll go over it in further detail later, but we recommend using between two and three pounds of honey per gallon of mead — 2 pounds if you want it on the dryer side, and 3 pounds if you'd like it to be sweeter.

A good starting point with most fruits is about 3 pounds of fruit per gallon of mead, though I have been known to use 5 or even 6 pounds of fruit.

If you put in a bunch of honey and you get enough yeast (the right kind of yeast where it ferments all the way out) then you'll have a really dry, high alcohol champagne-like mead. You can use less honey to make a lower alcohol mead.

Pour the fruit puree into the fermentation jar. Rack the mead from the carboy to the fermentation jar, taking care to leave as much lees as possible at the bottom of the carboy. Place the lid on the jar and refrigerate for 1 to 2 weeks.

Traditional meads usually require six months to 2 years for the flavors to mellow and smooth and any off flavors to diminish. Melomels or fruit meads can take six months to 5 years for the flavors to fully integrate and the tannins and acids to mellow. Metheglin or spiced meads are quicker, six months to a year.

Yet you can age it in any container type/style that you want to, whether that's jars or bottles, beer bottles or wine bottles, etc etc.... Just remember, it's about air space/oxidative damage as well as light/UV damage to the product.....

In theory, the smaller batch should ferment and clear a little faster.

Why did it fall out of favor? There were some new tax laws, as well as an increased availability of West Indian sugar in the 17th century that made honey harder and less necessary to obtain. But it was also the rise of other alcohols—namely beer and wine—that really did it in.

What is the best honey for berry mead? ›

So, out of the 300 types, what is the best honey for mead? Meaderies, whether commercial or homebased, agree that honey harvested locally is the best kind. As for a specific kind of honey, orange blossom came out as a highly popular one because of its consistent flavor as well as citrusy taste.

The best honey for mead is raw and local. If you have our Mead Making Kit & need honey to get started, try some of our favorite regional honey varieties: Clover & Midwest. The perfect bulk honey for mead, each bottle contains 40 oz (2.5 lb) - exactly what you need to ferment 1 gallon of mead.

So I went ahead and racked the mead off the seeds/sediment a week after I pulled the fruit out. I usually leave my meads on the fruit for 10 - 14 days. I haven't seen any advantage to longer contact time. Know going in that you will need a lot of strawberries to get a substantial amount of flavor.

Think raisins, Zante currants, dates, figs, and dehydrated papaya or apricots. All of these can be used to introduce flavor into mead.

The numbers above are for fruit in secondary, as a guideline, if you want a strong sweet melomel, add up to 4 lbs/gal of berries or stone fruits to primary fermenter. If you prefer a dry mead, reduce the levels to 1 to 1.5 lbs/gal and keep the alcohol content below 10% ABV to reduce the harshness of the final melomel."

They estimate that an actual pound of raspberries is about four cups, or 135 average size raspberries. This many berries can be found in a one-quart container as well as a one-pound container. A one-pint container holds about half the volume of a one-quart container.

The ratio ranges from 1 lb. honey per gallon of water for a very light "soft-drink" to 5 lbs. per gallon for a sweet dessert wine. The less honey, the lighter the mead, and the quicker it can be made.

A new planting in sandy loam soil requires 18 gallons per day per 100 feet of row. A mature planting in the same soil type requires 27 gallons per day per 100 feet of row. Increase the water rate for sandier soil, and decrease it for heavier soil.